John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early RecordsTooker, William Wallace
History
John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records
Tooker, William Wallace
Cockenoe-de-Long Island, active 1649-1687; Eliot, John, 1604-1690; Indians of North America -- New York (State) -- Long Island
Westchester County, N. Y.,[57] and are too lengthy to dwell upon at
this time.
_Cockoo_, _Cokoo_, _Cockoe_, or _Cakoe_, as his name is variously
given in the papers relating to this affair, is evidently an
abbreviated form of _Cockenoe_.[58] All the facts recorded in
connection with it point to him and to no one else. From the context
of the papers, he was a strange Indian, not living up the Hudson
river, where it is stated all the other Indians dwelt. That he was
acting as an interpreter is evident--a fact which, as I have before
observed, was a very rare qualification for an Indian of that period.
Humphrey Hughes, whose name appears as one of the witnesses on
Cockoo's power of attorney, was a seaman in the employ of Revell, and
in his various capacities as a sailor, trader, fisherman, or an
inhabitant, is frequently mentioned in the records of both South[59]
and East Hampton towns;[60] hence _Cockenoe_ was no stranger to him.
Two years afterward Hughes witnessed the renewal of the Montauk Squaw
Sachem's whaling grant to John Cooper; therefore, taking all these
items of fact into consideration, it is not at all strange that
_Cockenoe_ should have been employed by Thomas Revell in buying land
from the Indians in Westchester County.
On February 21, 1662[61] (February 11, 1661) _Chekkonnow_ again
united with his tribe in the deed known as the "Hither Woods"
purchase, "for all the piece or neck of land belonging to _Muntauket_
land westward to a fresh pond in a beach, on this side westward to the
place where the old Indian fort stood, on the other side eastward to
the new fort that is yet standing, the name of the pond (Fort Pond) is
_Quaunontowounk_ on the north, and _Konkhonganik_ on the south,"[62]
etc. At this date, as is proven by the above wording of this deed, the
Montauks were encamped at the southern part of East Hampton
village[63] under the protection of the settlers, in order to escape
the invasions of the Narragansetts, and Montauk was temporarily
abandoned.
In the same year _Checkanow_ was sent with _Tobis_, another Indian, by
order of the _Sachem Squaw_, widow of _Wyandanch_, to mark out John
Cooper's whaling limits on the beach to the westward of
Southampton.[64]
Some of the boundaries of Huntington, laid out in 1658, being disputed
by their neighbors of Oyster Bay, it became necessary to send for
_Cockenoe_ that he might identify his former marks. At a town meeting
held at Huntington March 8, 1664[65] (26-12-1663). "It was voted that
when _Chiskanoli_ come that Mr Wood shall have power to agree with
him, and the town to gratifie him to show the boundaries of the necks
of meadow at the south bought by the town."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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